


Seasons

by especiallythezefronposter



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multiple Personality Disorder, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 21:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/especiallythezefronposter/pseuds/especiallythezefronposter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Sometimes I wish we could be strangers</em>
  <br/>
  <em>So I didn't have to know your pain.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasons

Every day lasted a year in Tony's life.

It hadn't always been like that, of course. Back in the beginning, Loki had been different; still broken. And maybe Tony had been different, too. He had believed Loki could go back to the person he had been before the battle, before all of the pain and humiliation he had gone through. The thing was that all of the pieces had healed in the wrong way, as if broken bones had formed a new organ instead of just growing back together. Before that had happened, it had always been fall.

Now that only occurred when Tony was gone, Loki all alone. He would come back upstairs after some hours in the workshop, and he would find Loki sitting on a floor littered with broken glass, his own blood drying on his fingertips, or curled up on the cold tiles of a balcony that looked out over New York, the city so far below that even Loki, who had nothing to do with those people, must have felt lonely as he looked down at them. One day Tony had come upstairs and had found him lying on the sofa, face buried in the pillows and a worried Pepper bent over him. He had only seen that Loki was clinging to a knife blade later, but it would take weeks for the nightmares about crimson blood seeping through Loki's fingers to go away. He had stood there and watched as Pepper softly sang to Loki, so gentle he almost wondered if she really remembered New York and all Loki had done. Minutes later he was asleep and she had pried the knife from his grip. She didn't allow Tony to help her bandage the wound, and only talked to him when she was done, sitting down with him on the other sofa. 'If you need some rest, just call me, okay? I can stay with him for a while.'

Tony felt vulnerable as he looked at Loki's sleeping figure. No one knew about this, and Tony felt like ha had let Loki down for letting Pepper see him in this state. 'Don't you hate him?', he asked as he looked back at Pepper. 'For everything?'

She smiled sadly. 'It was another Loki that did that,' she reminded him. 'And you love him, so the least I can do is give him a chance. I trust your judgement, Tony.'

And maybe the fact that that stunned him, knowing someone could actually trust him, was a sign of how broken he really was, how deep they had fallen already.

Usually, when Pepper wasn't there, winter followed after fall immediately. Tony would have his arms wrapped around Loki, wouldn't realize he had stopped crying, and then he would feel cold, surprisingly strong hands against his chest, and when Loki lifted his head, his eyes had become hard, as if the rains of fall had frozen, and he would look so painfully beautiful. He would step out of Tony's embrace, his face almost disgusted, if he let any emotion shine through the layer of ice that masked his feelings at all. He would ignore Tony if the latter tried to talk to him and hit him if he tried to touch him, and every time it felt the same, as if he forgot his coat on the first snowy day of the winter and was surprised by the biting cold year after year. Time after time, all confidence drained from him after the rejection and all he could do was endure the pain and hope spring would come soon.

He would regret hoping that, of course, because spring was worse than the broken, hopeless ghost and the harsh, frozen fallen angel together. The snow melted slowly, and Tony would only notice the change when he looked back. Loki would look so much younger, his eyes big and full of wonder, his voice soft like the wings of a butterfly. He would lie next to Tony in their bed and let his eyes and fingertips drift over his hair, his cheeks, his lips as if it was the first time he saw him. 'You are beautiful,' he would say. 'Like my brother.' He would smile such a beautiful, innocent smile, as if he didn't know anything about who he was and what he had done. 'His name is Thor,' he would continue. 'He is the bravest warrior of Asgard. He says that when I'm as old and tall as he is, we can go hunting together, so I can learn to be just like him!' His eyes would shimmer with happiness and pride. 'You can come with us if you want. Then we can be like the Warriors Three! Would you want that?' His voice would skip with excitement. His eyes were full of love and trust.

Tony would only smile sadly and would wish that this either lasted forever or ended now. 'Of course. How would you like to get us to Asgard?' And then he would listen to Loki's tales of Heimdall and Mjolnir, trying to ignore the ache in his heart.

Loki would fall asleep, eventually, or just stop talking, and then summer would come. His eyes would be tired but warm, his lips so close to smiling, his hands gentle and soft. 'I'm sorry,' he would say, touching Tony's face as much as he did during spring, but Loki didn't know that. He seemed to remember everything, the stinging tears and the biting hatred, Tony's worry and Tony's pain, everything but the hopes and dreams he had given up on as he grew up. That was merciful, Tony thought sometimes, summer was merciful, summer was forgiving. It was what Tony stayed for, for the sweet embraces and soft words, for the warmth and the comfort. For a moment they would be lovers and the promise that they would be lovers again tomorrow had to be enough.

Eventually it wasn't. He called Pepper at six in the morning, telling her she didn't have to come, that he just needed... And there his voice faltered. Loki was in the bedroom, dried tears drawing trails down his cheeks, his eyes dark and distant, his jaw set in a sharp line. The only difference from any other day was that Tony had snapped. He could feel tears sting in his eyes and it was getting harder to breathe. Pepper listened as he told her about Loki's moods and ten minutes after she had ended the call, she was standing at his door. She told Loki a story when spring came and when summer followed, Tony said goodbye to the both of them.

He spent most of the weeks that followed in his workshop, trying to fix machines that weren't broken while Pepper and Loki were in her apartment, some floors down. She tried to comfort him in the fall, left him alone in the winter, listened to his dreams in the spring and talked about what they would do about his problem in summer. Loki was soft and merciful and he did his best to change, but no matter how hard he tried, seasons weren't supposed to break their pattern. When Tony couldn't miss him any longer and Loki came back to him, winter was still just as harsh, and spring just as painful. 

But summer was soft and merciful, Tony reminded himself, and he would stay for that.

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: No Angel by Birdy.


End file.
